The present invention generally relates to an envelope insertion machine and, more feeder and an envelope staging area in the envelope insertion machine, and, more particularly, to the envelope supply paths for connecting the envelope transport paths between an envelope.
In an envelope insertion machine for mass mailing, there is an envelope feeder on one end of the machine to sequentially release envelopes directly into an envelope staging area, and a gathering section on the other end where the enclosure material is released and gathered. If the enclosure material contains many documents, these documents must be separately released from different enclosure feeders. The released documents must also be collated into a stack and moved to the envelope staging area where the document stack is inserted into an envelope by an insertion engine. In some envelope insertion machines, however, the movement of the envelopes from the envelope feeder to the envelope staging area involves a right-angle turn. In those machines, although the envelopes can be fed at a high feeding rate and moved at a high speed after they are released, each envelope must be slowed down or momentarily stopped before it can make a drastic turn to enter into the envelope staging area.
Because of the requirement for the right-angle turn, the envelope feeder must also be slowed down to wait for the previously released envelope to move out of the feeding path. Thus, the right-angle turn movement reduces the feeder rate that is otherwise attainable by the envelope feeder. Consequently, the throughput of the envelope insertion machine is also substantially reduced. In a high-speed envelope insertion machine wherein the machine throughput is required to reach 18,000 insertions per hour, the reduced velocity of the envelopes due to the right-angle turn requirement causes a bottle-neck in the entire insertion system.
Therefore, it is advantageous and desirable to provide a method and a system for transporting the envelopes released from the envelope feeder to the envelope staging area so as to solve the above-described bottle-neck problem in an envelope insertion machine.
The present invention provides an envelope transport system having two envelope bins and two envelope supply paths linking the envelope bins to an envelope feeder. Each envelope bin is used to temporarily store an envelope before that envelope is moved to the staging area. The envelope supply paths are controlled by a flipper gate which alternately opens one path and closes the other so as to allow an envelope feeder to feed an envelope into one envelope bin while waiting for the preceding envelope to be transported out of the other envelope bin to the staging area. With the dual envelope bins connected to the dual supply paths, the envelope feeder does not have to slow down substantially in order to wait for the released envelopes to clear the feeding path.
Accordingly, the first aspect of the present invention is to provide a system for transporting envelopes in an envelope insertion machine having an envelope feeder and an envelope staging area. The system comprises two envelope bins, each of which is connected to a different envelope supply path to receive one envelope at a time from the envelope feeder in an alternate fashion so as to allow the received envelope to slow down before it is transported out of the envelope bin to the envelope staging area.
Preferably, each envelope bin has a catch mechanism located at the bin entrance to prevent an envelope, which has entered the bin, from moving out of the entrance in an opposite direction, and a stop mechanism located at the opposing end to keep the entered envelope from moving out of the envelope bin from the opposite end and to momentarily slow down the entered envelope.
Preferably, each envelope bin has a width defined by the stop mechanism and the catch mechanism and the bin width is adjustable in accordance with the width of the envelope.
Preferably, a coupling device mechanically connects the two envelope bins so that the width of both envelope bins can be simultaneously adjusted.
Preferably, the stop mechanism is operable in a first position to stop an entering envelope from moving out of the bin end along the entering direction and a second position to allow the entered envelope to move out of the bin along the entering direction, if needed.
The second aspect of the invention is to provide a method of transporting envelopes released by the envelope feeder to the envelope staging area in the envelope insertion machine. The method comprises the step of feeding the released envelopes into two envelope bins in an alternate fashion so that one envelope is temporarily stored in one of the envelope bins while the preceding envelope is transported out of the other envelope bin to the staging area.
The third aspect of the invention is to provide a method of simultaneously adjusting the width of the dual envelope bins. The method comprises the steps of: a) engaging the stop mechanism and the catch mechanism of one envelope bin with a first adjustment device for adjusting the distance between the mechanism and the catch mechanism of that envelope bin; b) engaging the stop mechanism and the catch mechanism of the other envelope bin with a second adjustment device for adjusting the distance of the stop mechanism and the catch mechanism of that other envelope bin, and c) coupling the first adjustment device to the second adjustment device so that the distance between the stop mechanism and the stop mechanism of each of the envelope bins can be simultaneously adjusted.
The present invention will become apparent upon reading the description taken in conjunction with FIGS. 1 to 8.